WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: SharePoint and screen readers

for

From: Steve Green
Date: Mar 14, 2013 12:34PM

We have just done some JAWS testing of SharePoint 2007 and 2010 applications for a client. However, our report was limited to telling them what the front-end code needed to look like. We were not required to tell them what they needed to do in the admin website to make it happen - in fact we did not even have access to the admin website.

I have to say that the front-end code was disgusting, and I believe that the offending features were all 'out of the box' rather than something our client had done. The biggest problem was the data tables, which had context-sensitive menus that appeared when you hover a mouse over any cell or row or column header. JAWS could not see the menu, but the links (which were transparent images) caused so much 'noise' that you could not begin to understand the table contents. Every cell contained something like "onmouseover, press shift plus enter to open in a new window left paren opens in a new window right paren" in addition to the cell contents.

These hover menus also contained checkboxes that JAWS could see even if they were not visible on screen. They did not have text labels or 'id' or 'name' attributes, and there was some weird JavaScript going on that caused JAWS to think they were textboxes, and they somehow prevented JAWS from reading the right-hand column of data.

Our advice was to remove all this garbage, which the administrator thought would be fairly straightforward. Unfortunately I don't know how he planned to do it.

Steve Green

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Lijewski, Lolly M (DHS)
Sent: 14 March 2013 18:10
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] SharePoint and screen readers

Hello:

My agency uses Microsoft SharePoint as a collaboration tool. We are testing it with JAWS, and are looking at testing it with NVDA. Does anyone have experience with making this application more accessible? The three areas we identified are:

1. Lack of an accessible template

2. Lack of a configuration file for SharePoint in JAWS and

3. Lack of user knowledge about how to build an accessible site in the application

Thank you,


Lolly Lijewski
Disability Services Division
Minnesota Department of Human Services
Work Phone: (651) 431-3218
Fax: (651) 431-7411
Email: <EMAIL REMOVED> <mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> >

Building Address:
540 Cedar Street
St. Paul Minnesota 55155

Mailing Address:
PO Box 64967
St. Paul Minnesota 55164-0967

Caution: This e-mail and attached documents, if any, may contain information that is protected by state or federal law. E-mail containing private or protected information should not be sent over a public (non-secure) Internet unless it is encrypted pursuant to DHS standards. This e-mail should be forwarded only on a strictly need-to-know basis. If you are not the intended recipient, please: (1) notify the sender immediately, (2) do not forward the message, (3) do not print the message and (4) erase the message from your system